yaleman.org

Ok, so there’s been a lot of changes in the last couple of days in James-world. For one thing, Bryants called me back about the engine – the bores are a little more worn than it was first thought, so I have to use +0.040" pistons  – which meant an email to GCP to change my order. They seemed fine with it, saying they would change the order, probably have to charge me, but that was fine.

Fuel and injection! I don’t think I mentioned it the other day, but for $180 I picked up another injection manifold for the gemini. This one is a single throttle body setup, instead of a dual-sequential like the other one. I also got a full set of injectors and fuel rail along with it, which was my main reason for buying it. This means that all I need to find is the throttle position sensor to go onto the manifold – I’ve been told that the VL Commodore has one that suits and bolts straight on, I’ll be looking at that in the next little while.

Next! Programming in Python using the pygame module libraries. Now that I’m waiting on more money than hard work as far as the car goes, I’m working on my programming skills with python and pygame. Pygame is a set of modules that allow you to use the Simple Directmeda Layer (SDL) libs in python, which allows for fast graphics programming development. I’m looking at using it for the "digital dash" system as I’ll need a lot of fast-updating 2D graphics (and maybe some
3D stuff if I put some ideas into play.

Ok, so I’m a geek – I’ve always got to have a lot of geek toys around me, and one of the main things is a computer. I’m building the Gemini, as you all know, and with that is an ECU called a MegaSquirt. Most ECU’s have inbuilt datalogging and storage capabilities, or have the ability to send live data to another system (normally a PC). The MegaSquirt is the second style of unit, logging through the serial interface on a PC. This means that I have to have a PC in the car at all times that I want to datalog – which in my case, is as often as possible, to make sure the car is running correctly and so that I can optimise fuel, spark and eventually boost maps.

There’s two ways to have a PC in a car, either have a laptop, or a normal PC in a specialised case. Due to the fact that having a laptop on the seat all the time is annoying – not to mention dangerous, as it’s likely that the laptop is going to spend most of its time flying around the cabin – it’s more practical to have a dedicated PC built into a small enclosure that can be mounted in the car. I’ve had a 7" LCD TV for quite some time – it was supposed to go into the van – but now that the van’s on the back burner, I can use the LCD screen as a display unit for the PC. At this stage, the PC is going to be based upon a MSI MS-6178 motherboard. This is a socket 370 motherboard with onboard video and sound, including TV out. This allows for a single-board solution reducing size and issues with components like video cards shaking loose. It’s also low voltage, low heat and small in size. I won it on eBay for the princely sum of $26.37. I’ve already got a spare celeron 850 which will do the job fine, being fast enough for the intended purpose, and having a low heat output. For the system memory, I’ve got quite a lot of spare SD-RAM, so I’ll try and get 512 megs of PC-133 in there, or at least as much as I can cram into the two RAM slots.

Storage for the PC is yet to be decided. What I’d love to be able to do is run the system entirely off flash media – something like a pair of 1GB CF cards in CF->IDE adaptors on a RAID card. This would mean that the only moving parts in the system are the fans, and the requirements for vibration dampening would be greatly reduced (since HDD’s are rather sensitive to vibration) The main problem is price per gb, but looking on ebay, it’s possible to get a Sandisk 1GB CF card for quite cheap these days.

The operating system to start with would have to be windows, due to the fact that the software for the megasquirt is primarily written in win32. I envision setting up a Linux-based system as an all-in-one solution doing datalogging, media and digital-dash systems for the car sometime in the future. Linux is a lot more flexible with respect to programming and interface, and I know how to tailor the OS for what I require in this system. It’ll allow me to strip the OS back to its bare bones, optimise every part of the system for fast start up and initialisation, then the programming of the interface for what I need to use it easily while still driving the car. I’d love to be able to get it to the point where I can have it boot in around five seconds and use it as the only interface to the car – allowing for a totally digital dash, incorporating all the different gauges needed to drive the car and monitor its health.

"CAPS LOCK IS NOT CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL. TURN IT THE FUCK OFF"

Well said, random internet-person.

It seems that there isn’t many pistons to suit the G180Z these days – the engine hasn’t been made for nearly 20 years, which I guess doesn’t help. GCP sent me an email yesterday saying so, and reporting that the Chrome-Moly rings I was looking for are no longer available. That means I’ll just have to deal with stock steel rings, and upgrade the pistons later when I supercharge. Since the engine hasn’t actually cost me that much, I might go to a 4ZE1 or something like that when I supercharge it, giving me a 2.4lt engine with slightly more modern components.

So, I stopped procrastinating and ordered my pistons and the gasket set today. Buying them from GimmeCarParts.com.au seems to have saved me a bit – Repco wanted to charge me 300+ for the pistons, where the GCP price was $287.82. This includes Chrome-Moly rings, a higher quality ring that’ll give better sealing and compression. Hopefully I should have them by the end of the week or so, then I can take the pistons and the clutch (which I’ll probably buy tomorrow from repco) to Bryant Engineering so they can do the machining.

Update: I got the usual "we have your order" email within a few minutes, but amazingly – six minutes after that email was sent automatically by their system, I received another email from one of their reps saying "we have your order, the +0.020" pistons will be ordered as you asked" which is quite amazing for an internet-based company. Thanks GimmeCarParts!